How Far Is Too Far?

I argued in my previous post that while true faith can exist with remarkable ignorance, confusion, and doubt, believers are called to learn everything that our Lord teaches in his Word. “How much is enough?” is basically a cop-out. It assumes that we’re saved by passing a doctrinal exam and we just want to know what will be on the test. That doesn’t exactly make a disciple—which first and foremost means a pupil. The corollary question is “How far is too far?” Yes, faith can coexist with ignorance and perhaps confusion, but what about outright contradiction of the truth?

At this point, we have to be careful about what we put under the category of heresy. Faith is trusting in Christ to save us from condemnation and death by his own life, death and resurrection. That’s why Paul says that these events in history are “of first importance”; they are the gospel (1 Cor 15:3). Deny the resurrection and you are cut off from all hope. Yet in that same chapter Paul goes on to unpack that gospel in its glorious effects: justification, sanctification, and glorification. It is possible for Christians to disagree about crucial definitions of these truths while nevertheless directing their faith to Jesus Christ. Whatever they say in theological debate, if you ask them where their confidence for salvation is lodged, they name Jesus Christ.

I have Roman Catholic and Protestant friends who don’t accept what I am convinced is the clear teaching of the gospel with respect to justification. I think they’re on dangerous ground. Yes, I believe that their salvation is endangered—not because they don’t check the right box on a doctrine exam, but because justification by Christ alone through faith alone is the only consistent way of articulating what it means to trust in Christ. I think the 17th-century Puritan John Owen was correct in his repeated warnings against the threat of Arminianism and Roman Catholic teaching on this point. Yet I also agree when he says, “Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness which in opinion they deny to be imputed” (The Doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone in Owen’s Works 5:163-64).